


Many times, Many ways

by Jmeelee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5 + 1, 5 Things, Alive Hale Family, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Smut, Enemies to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Mistletoe, Rimming, Stilinski Family Feels, Swearing, Terrible Nicknames, yes this is a christmas fic with rimming you read that correctly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 12:43:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmeelee/pseuds/Jmeelee
Summary: He turned around and stormed toward his Jeep.  Derek called out his name, but Stiles flipped him off over his shoulder.  He jabbed the key into the ignition, roared the engine, and smoked the tires as he peeled out of the parking lot, but not before he cranked down the glass and screamed at Derek from the driver’s side window, “Merry Christmas, motherfucker!”ORFive times Stiles and Derek ruined Christmas, and one time they fixed it.





	Many times, Many ways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EvanesDust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvanesDust/gifts).



> For my sterek crack connoisseur, [evanesdust](http://evanesdust.tumblr.com/). Thanks for always making me smile.

1

After choosing a super kick-ass Batman action figure to donate to the police station toy drive, Stiles and his mom ran into Talia Hale as they exited the department store.

 

 “How are you, Claudia?” Talia asked, and Stiles stealthy perused the contents of Talia’s shopping cart while listening with one ear to their conversation.  Lately everyone was asking his mom how she was feeling. Talia was Derek Hale’s mom, and Derek was the _coolest_.  Maybe if Stiles showed up at school tomorrow with present intel, Derek would let Stiles and Scott sit with the popular kids at lunch.  

 

It backfired, as most of Stiles’ schemes did.  When he excitedly informed Derek about the remote-controlled race car and five-hundred piece LEGO set, Derek huffed and accused Stiles of ruining the surprise.

 

“Wish you’d seen my mom, instead,” Scott bemoaned while they sat alone at lunch yet again.  So much for good intentions.

 

2

Stiles firmly locked away the first Christmas without Claudia and flushed the key down the toilet, then willfully ignored how the handwriting on the packages from Santa suddenly changed.  

 

There was a fresh dusting of snow on the dead grass the day before holiday break.  Derek was bundled up in a puffy coat, playing tag football with Jackson and some other boys at recess, and Stiles was listening to Lydia tell her friend about a book she requested from her grandmother.  Stiles, eager to talk to her, innocently said, “I asked Santa for a video game console.”

 

Jackson laughed so hard he snorted.  “Santa? What a _baby_!”

 

“You know Santa’s not real, don’t you?” Derek’s cheeks were rosy, and Stiles couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or second-hand embarrassment.  “Aren’t you a little _old_ to believe in Santa?”

 

Deep down Stiles did know, but his father worked so hard to make Christmas special after his mother died.  And what did Derek know about being _old_?  Stiles was only ten, but he felt like he was a hundred.  

 

Before he registered his body moving, Stiles lashed out, pushing Derek so hard he toppled to the ground, landing hard on his ass.  The entire school yard went silent as a ghost town.

 

They ended up in Principal Thomas’ office, awaiting their parents.  Talia arrived first, took one look at Stiles’ flushed face and quivering lip, and turned to Derek, asking, “What happened, baby?”

 

It was the softly spoken endearment—one he missed so badly— that did him in.  Stiles burst into tears.

 

“Oh, Stiles,” Talia whimpered, which made him cry harder.  She pulled his head to her chest, and they stayed like that, Stiles blubbering tears and snot all over her cashmere sweater until the Sheriff came.  

 

“I’m sorry,” Derek confessed, shamefaced, on his way out the door.  “I told him Santa wasn't real, and Jackson called him a baby. We were being mean.”  He desperately tried to make eye contact with Stiles, who stubbornly avoided his gaze while scrubbing at tear tracks.  “I really am sorry, Stiles.”

 

Stiles refused to answer.  Derek’s distressed face as he walked away made him feel even worse.

 

3

There’d been a robbery at the electronics store in the galleria the previous night, so John brought Stiles with him to the shopping center while he took statements.  He handed Stiles a crisp twenty-dollar bill and promised to be done in an hour. “Why don’t you buy your babcia a Christmas present?”

 

Stiles bought a vibrant scarf six minutes after leaving his father because money always burned a hole in his pocket, and spent the remaining fifty-four minutes wandering aimlessly from store to store.  

 

When he passed the mall Santa he stopped and did a double take.  Crowded around the faux-Kris Kringle were the three Hale children; Laura, Derek and Cora, smiling wide in matching green cardigans and khakis.  It felt like poetic justice. Stiles may have childishly believed in Santa a few years too long, but at least he wasn’t fourteen getting his picture taken with him.  

 

Derek looked over and saw Stiles smirking behind his hand, and turned a blotchy red from his neck to the tips of his ears. “Do you have a fever, Derek?” Talia inquired.  “You’re magenta!”

 

Derek tracked him down fifteen minutes later outside the pretzel stand, where he’d spent the remaining change he had.  “Don’t tell anyone.” Based on Derek’s scowl, the words were meant to be threatening, but they came out sounding a lot more like a plea.  

 

“Geez, don’t get all worked up,” Stiles said around a mouthful of soft dough.  “I won’t mention it. I’m not a _jerk_ .”  The unspoken _like you_ rang out loudly over the holiday Muzak, and Derek lowered his eyes.

 

Then Stiles remembered how Derek never told anyone he’d cried in the Principal’s office.  He stood up and offered Derek an extra salty section of pretzel. “It must be nice to have a big family at the holidays.  I’ll keep your secret, like you kept mine in fifth grade. Even?”

 

Derek accepted the peace pretzel.  “Even,” he replied.

 

The truce lasted four years, but when they received the Hale family Christmas card that year, Derek’s mottled pink face was front and center.   _Oops_.

 

4

Freshman year, Stiles—newly out as bisexual—got drunk on peppermint schnapps with his roommate after finals, and when Brian asked him, “Who was the first dude you ever found attractive?” Stiles’ intoxicated mind supplied a picture of Derek’s face.

 

That night, after Brian passed out, drooling on the stained dorm room carpet, Stiles looked Derek up on social media.  Their truce had held steady throughout high school, but they were never _friends_.  They’d subsisted on a steady diet of avoidance until right now, when Stiles cyber-stalked him like a nosy mom with a new Facebook account.  He looked at Derek’s photos, breezed through his entries, learned what college he attended in New York City and read his comments on other people’s posts. Then he went back to the photos.  One photo in particular.

 

A bearded Derek, dressed in an orange turtleneck and dark pants, was in an alleyway, jump-kicking off a painted brick wall with his converse sneakers. He was in mid-air, arms raised, showing off a tantalizing glimpse of toned stomach and obliques where his sweater rode up.  Derek had grown up in all the right places, none more so than his _ass_ , which Stiles couldn’t stop staring at.  It was round, perky and adorable, and Stiles had the drunken desire to _bite it._ He took another shot of minty green courage and cracked his knuckles.

 

He woke up at noon to the sound of Brian puking in their shared bathroom, and within seconds a pounding headache and all his poor life choices from last night slammed into his skull.  “Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” he mumbled, falling out of bed and searching desperately for his phone. When he opened social media, he had two-hundred and thirteen notifications. He immediately deleted his profile without looking at them, and crawled back under the covers.

 

On December twenty-sixth Stiles was in his kitchen reheating leftovers when Scott called.  “Oh my god, dude. You better hide in your house the rest of winter break, because Derek Hale wants to _kill_ you.”

 

It had been three weeks, and Stiles had naively thought he’d gotten away with his social media faux-pas.  “Oh no.”

 

“Oh, _yes_ ”  Scott, the traitor, sounded downright gleeful.  “So, I ran into Cora Hale at the coffee shop. Remember how Derek’s birthday is on Christmas?”  Stiles tried to remember if he ever knew that fact, but Scott didn’t wait for a response. “Well, apparently she took a screenshot of your comment on Derek’s photo before he deleted it, and had a bakery print the post on icing paper and put it on his birthday cake!  His _whole family_ saw it!”  

 

“Oh no,” Stiles repeated, sweating.  

 

“Oh yes.  Here, she sent me a pic.”  Stiles’ phone chimed with an incoming text.  He looked. The photo quality was so good. This was so bad.  

 

Beneath the hot picture of Derek was Stiles’ drunk caption. _Where you been hiding that cutie patootie booty all these years, Hale?  I want to get my mouth on it._

 

“His whole family saw it?” Stiles squeaked.  He’d meant he wanted to bite it, which was bad enough, but the way he’d worded it looked like he meant…. oh god.  

 

“Whole.  Fucking. Family.  And they’ve nicknamed him cutie patootie booty.”

 

“I’m dead,” Stiles lamented.

 

“Yup.  Hey, I wonder if it tasted good?”

 

5

Revenge was a dish best served cold, and Derek ate like a pig at a buffet three years later.

 

As payment for living with his dad rent-free until he found a job, Stiles promised his father he’d be part of the yearly fundraising auction to benefit the Beacon Hills hospital.  Community members bid on fun, platonic dates with bachelors and bachelorettes. Lydia, home for the holidays from MIT, had garnered six hundred dollars for her dinner and a movie date, and Scott had pulled in a generous four hundred twenty-five for his bowling date.

 

But when Stiles stepped on stage, crickets could be heard.  Not a single bid was made, despite Jordan Parrish heckling the audience. Stiles hadn’t felt so anxious since his days being picked last in gym class.  Scott stood at the front of the crowd, looking bewildered. Stiles’ eyes darted around, and landed on Derek Hale, standing at the back of the auditorium with his arms crossed, a satisfied smirk flirting with his mouth.   _That shithead_.

 

After the longest, most agonizing two minutes of Stiles’ life, Parrish called forfeit on Stiles’ date, and Stiles stormed offstage.  

 

He chased Derek down in the parking lot.  “You’re not funny, asshole,” Stiles growled.

 

“Actually, I am.  Watching you sweat up there under those lights was highly amusing.”  Derek laughed.

 

“How’d you do it?  How’d you get everyone to not bid?  I understand that you hate me, but that was such a dick move.  This money is for charity, Derek! You’re not only hurting me here.”

 

“Relax, _Robin-hood_.”  Derek sneered.  “I offered eight hundred dollars if there were no bids cast for you.  The hospital is going to get it’s donation.”

 

“Wow.”  The fact that Derek had a job that granted him the liberty to donate such a high sum was like pouring salt into the raw wound that was Stiles’ unemployment.  “You’re still a dick.”

 

Derek shrugged, a fake pout pulling down his lips.  “Be thankful I didn’t get up there and announce to everyone that I wanted to eat your ass.”

 

Stiles sputtered.  “I didn’t mean it like that!”

 

“Oh, really?”  Derek’s exaggerated eye roll looked painful.  “Then what did you mean?”

 

“That I wanted to bite it!”  People heading to their cars looked over at Stiles’ outburst.  Derek’s eyebrows were fusing with his hairline.

 

“I mean… I was… oh, forget it!”  Stiles stepped into Derek’s personal space, seeing red as he stabbed a finger in his ruggedly handsome face.  “You are a bully, and you’ve always been a bully. It doesn’t matter how hot you are on the outside, because on the inside you're still that same shitty kid who wouldn’t eat lunch with me and made me cry in elementary school.” Aw shit, he’s twenty-two but his voice broke on that last word.  Derek was staring at him in shock, mouth gaping and eyes wide, like Stiles’ outburst required an overabundance of cognitive processing. “Leave me alone, Derek. I do not give a flying fuck if you have forty pounds of muscle on me, if you ever come near me again I will punch you in the face.”

 

He turned around and stormed toward his Jeep.  Derek called out his name, but Stiles flipped him off over his shoulder.  He jabbed the key into the ignition, roared the engine, and smoked the tires as he peeled out of the parking lot, but not before he cranked down the glass and screamed at Derek from the driver’s side window, “Merry Christmas, motherfucker!”

 

+1

It was official; the universe hated Stiles Stilinski.  

 

He was twenty-six when he got hired as the IT guy at the same firm Derek Hale worked for.  Sadly, his vow to punchisize Derek’s face the next time he saw him went unfulfilled, since they were in a staff meeting with thirty other people and Stiles _really_ wanted to keep his job.  

 

They successfully avoided each other for six months, reminiscent of their high school truce days.  They abstained from eye contact in the hallways, and pretended the other didn’t exist in the lunchroom.  Derek even mumbled a quiet _thanks_ when Stiles recovered fifteen files he’d accidentally deleted.

 

So Stiles figured the company’s ugly sweater party would be business as usual for him and Derek, until the moment Stiles reached for the punch ladle, and accidentally grabbed Derek’s hand when he reached for the same spoon.

 

Derek’s gaudy vest covered in snowflakes and snowmen had no shirt underneath, and his biceps were on full display, like a redneck at a gun show.  Stiles’ sweater was fittingly adorned with a giant Santa head and the phrase _Ask your mom if I’m real._  He may have thought of Derek when he bought it.  

 

“Uh, here,” Derek said, jerking his hand back like it was on fire.  He handed a clear plastic cup with festive cranberry-red punch to Stiles who eyed it suspiciously.  

 

“Did you poison it?  Am I going to have explosive diarrhea if I drink it?”

 

“What?  No!”

 

Stiles took the drink, giving Derek the evil eye, and turned to wander away.  Derek trotted after him. “Stiles. Please wait. I don’t want this.”

 

“You don’t want _punch_ ?  Were you just standing there so you could _steal_ it from me?”

 

Derek plucked the cup from Stiles’ grasp and plonked it down on a table—probably to prevent Stiles from throwing it in his face—then herded him into a quiet corner.  “I don’t want the fighting and the misunderstandings and the ruining each other’s holiday. I hate it.” The last three words were so saturated with frustration and misery they were practically dripping.

 

“What do you want?  Another truce? That will only last until one of us inevitably fucks up.  And let’s be honest, Derek. We’re both professional screw ups.”

 

Derek scrapes a hand over his own face.  “You called me a bully last time we saw each other, and you were right.  But I’m not a kid anymore, Stiles. And _you_ didn’t give me a chance, either.  When I tried to apologize back then, you wouldn’t look at me.  On our way home my mom explained how you must have been feeling, why you wanted to hold on to some magic for just a little longer, and I cried, Stiles.  I couldn’t understand, but I _wanted_ to help.  When we came back to school you shut me out and never gave me the chance.”  Stiles opened his mouth to defend himself but Derek barreled on. “And then when you left that dirty comment on my pic, I sent you a ton of messages, but you deleted your profile without answering any of them.”

 

Stiles, for once, wasn’t sure what to say.

 

“I’m sorry I left you up on that stage, feeling awful and alone. I thought, because I donated the money you wanted to raise, that somehow relieved me of guilt.  It doesn’t. I’ve thought about that night a lot.”

 

Stiles took a deep breath.  “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have left that message on your picture.  Your ass is as perfect as the rest of you and my drunk brain short circuited when I saw it.  I should have been an adult and apologized, instead of hiding. And I’m sorry I started this whole retched cycle by snitching about your gifts.”

 

Derek smiled.  “That LEGO set was awesome.  You didn’t ruin anything.”

 

“Phew.”  Stiles mimed wiping sweat off his brow, and Derek smiled even more.  “And that time I saw you getting your family portrait with Santa? That green sweater really brought out your eyes.”

 

Derek playfully punched him in the arm.  “I’m not a bad person, Stiles, but I haven’t been my best when I’m around you.  You just… you drive me _crazy_.”

 

“Understandable,” Stiles relented.  “I do tend to rub people the wrong way.”

 

“Yes.  No. Ugh.”  And Stiles didn’t have a _ton_ of experience when it came to dating and hooking up— just a few casual relationships and two one-night stands—but he recognized the _look_ Derek was giving him.

 

“Derek Hale, are you trying to say our twenty year stretch of ruining Christmas was simply pigtail pulling?”

 

“No!  I was an asshole, you were a slightly smaller asshole.”  Stiles laughed, hard, at the image that conjured. “There’s no excuse for any of it, on both our sides, but I really want to fix it, before it’s too late.”

 

Stiles stepped closer.  “This conversation is going a long way toward fixing things.”

 

Derek swallowed.  “Can we continue it?  Just us. Sometime soon.”

 

Derek was right, Stiles was a slightly smaller asshole, because he knew exactly what Derek was trying to say but he wasn’t inclined to make it _easy_.  “You can talk to me any day at work.  You know where my office is.”

 

Derek scowled.  “Over coffee. Or dinner?  I want… I’d really like to take you out, if you’d like to go.”

 

Stiles smiled.  “I think you know what I’d like.  It was plastered on top of your nineteenth birthday cake.”  Derek blushed, and Stiles knew he was so screwed.

 

“Ha!  Look at that!”  The moment was interrupted by Larry from accounting, pink drink sloshing over the lip of his cup as he gestured wildly at something over Stiles and Derek’s heads.  They both looked up, and saw a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling by a red ribbon. “You guys have to _kiss_!”

 

Stiles couldn’t stand Larry, who refused to use the cloud backup system and still stored all his files on flash drives he always ended up leaving in the bathroom.  The dude was obnoxious, especially now when he sing-songed the words, “Unless you both are too chicken.” Then he proceeded to squawk loudly.

 

Stiles looked at Derek.  “Man, _fuck_ this guy.”

 

“No, thank you,” Derek replied, then grabbed Stiles by the back of the neck and hauled him in for a smooch.  

 

Derek’s mouth was sweet and fruity, and Stiles leaned forward, chasing the taste with his tongue, like he’d spent twenty-six years in the desert and now he was dying of thirst.  He couldn’t tell if the breathy sighs were coming from his throat, or Derek’s, but they spurned him on even more, and he licked into Derek’s mouth.

 

They broke away, panting, and Stiles turned back toward Larry.  “Now who’s—oh, never mind. He’s gone.”

 

Derek’s face was scrunched up, like he was having a particularly difficult bowel movement.  Stiles waited it out, Derek’s hand still resting warm and possessive on the back of his neck, until Derek finally said, “My grandmother still calls me cutie patootie booty.  

 

“Oh no!”  Stiles couldn’t help but laugh.  “That’s awful, man. Sorry.” He rose on his tiptoes and peered over Derek’s shoulder, checking out Derek’s butt in his slacks.   _Oh yeah_.  “It’s terrible, but it’s true.”

 

It was Derek’s turn to laugh.  

 

“So, do you think the world will implode if we attempt going out on a date?” Derek asked.

 

“Oh, definitely.  Christmas is sure to be ruined forever.  I’m thinking explosions, massive fires, possibly the rapture.”

 

“Sounds hot.”  Derek grinned.

 

“I’ll show you hot,” Stiles snarled, and pulled Derek back under the mistletoe.  

 

_Christmas Eve, two weeks later..._

 

“Hmm,” Stiles hummed, taking his mouth away from Derek’s wet hole.  “Maybe I really did mean _lick_ instead of _bite_ all those years ago.”

 

“Stiles,” Derek grumbled into the pillowcase and shoved his ass back toward Stiles’ face.  “If you stop now I really will kill you, once and for all.”

 

Stiles slapped one pert cheek, and admired the jiggle.  

 

“I hate you,” Derek complained, bunching the bed sheet in his fists.

 

“You really don’t.”  He leaned forward, but stopped just short of putting his mouth back on Derek.  “Oh, one more thing.”

 

“Fuuuuucccckkkk,” Derek whined.  

 

Stiles laughed.  “Merry Christmas, motherfucker.”

 

Then he got back to work.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm [Jamie](http://jmeelee.tumblr.com/). Chat with me about Sterek anytime!


End file.
